A panoramic history of the culture of Depression-era America and the Popular Front.

The Cultural Front charts the extraordinary upsurge of cultural activity and theory in America that began during the Great Depression and embraced Disney animators and proletarian novelists alike, alongside Orson Welles, Duke Ellington, John Dos Passos, C. L. R James and Billie Holiday. Spawned by the Popular Front of the Communist Party, it grew to encompass virtually every aspect of high and popular art in the US, instigating one of the most culturally rich and exciting periods in American history.

Reviews

“A truly wonderful piece of history.”

– The Progressive

“As fresh a synthesis of the distinctive culture of the 1930s and 1940s as you are likely
to find anywhere.”

– Times Literary Supplement

“An immense achievement … the most important book yet written on American
culture in the age of the CIO.”